Best and worst states for family medicine

In the series of articles which does a subject wise analysis of the best and worst states to apply for medical residency based on the IMG friendliness scale, this article pertains to Family medicine. Now FM has been one of the fab-four as far as IMG friendliness is concerned. Many a international graduate has found residency in FM in spite of having drawbacks in the application like low scores, older year of graduation etc. This list is extremely important for foreign graduates for two reasons, one - FM is THE residency of choice for many applicants and two, the criteria for application are not as strict as mentioned before. The previous article spoke of most and least favorable states for those wanting to pursue radiology which can be read at Best and worst states for foreign medical graduates seeking residency in Radiology.

The states have been listed on the left and include the all continental US states and the percentage of IMGs in the state are depicted by the bar graph. The data is compiled from NRMP, results and data section. You can click on the image to zoom in.

Fig 1: Family medicine friendly states: source NRMP

Family medicine results show the following few things -
1. no programs is 100% full of foreign graduates
2. There is a gradual increase in percentage across the states as opposed to sharp steps which were seen with radiology results.
3. Popular states like Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois etc lie in the middle of the list.

Given below is a list of Top 10 worst states for an applicant seeking family medicine residency and excludes the common obvious choices like Alaska, Hawaii etc.

1. Vermont
2. Utah
3. New Hampshire
4. Colorado
5. Arizona
6. Kansas
7. Oregon
8. Washington
9. Iowa
10. Idaho

The reason I have included the ones listed above, because they are states where foreign graduates still tend to apply.

Top 10 Best states for an applicant seeking Family medicine residency are,

1. Michigan
2. Arkansas
3. North Dakota
4. Wyoming
5. Georgia
6. New Jersey
7. New York
8. Ohio
9. West Virginia
10. Florida
11. District of Columbia

Caveat: The caveat remains the same, remember these are percentages and can be influence by individual number of spots. however, this list will help curb unnecessary spending and save money in application costs by informing the applicant to not apply to those states, which have low foreign trained residents at the same time, enhancing the chances of matching by applying to the correct states. Go back to the main page of this section to check out other specialties. If you want to receive updates and stay in touch join on facebook or follow me on twitter!